HEIMAT reloaded

CETA, TTIP, “We will manage” – this is 2016 and ‘Heimat’ [‘homeland’] is the concept of the day. ‘Heimat’ has a long tradition in Germany: In the 1930s it was supposed to expand, in the ‘40s it was meant to be protected and purified, in the ‘50s recovered. In the ‘60s it finally became a question of the displaced exiles. In the ‘70s it was the ‘cold Heimat,’ and in the ‘80s it somehow disappeared. Now it’s back again. A new party has been promoting itself with an overdose of ‘Heimat’: It promises to protect ‘our homeland’ as a ‘homeland for those without a homeland’ – against everything foreign – with border controls, deportations and if necessary by using weapons. Heimat can also obviously be acquired by means of physical strength: Already in 1946 the CSU was calling: “New citizens! Share our homeland with us! Share our work with us! Work gives you a right to a home!” Where is ‘Heimat’ in the age of Google and Facebook? After “Graecomania 200 years”, “HEIMAT reloaded” is the new coproduction between Hans-Werner Kroesinger and HAU Hebbel am Ufer.